The pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes in humans is attributed at least in part to alteration of regulation and homeostasis of glucose, fat, and protein metabolism, due to increased absorption by the gastrointestinal tract. The effects of dietary glucose, fat, and protein on the production, secretion, and action of hormones (including insulin) and cytokines (including leptin) mediating energy and glucose homeostasis in diabetes and obesity, may be mitigated by slowing digestive processes leading to their absorption and eventual metabolism.
PCT Publication WO 97/26042 to Terekhin et al., which is incorporated herein by reference, describes medical equipment that can be used, for example, in post-surgical therapy in outpatient clinics and in hospitals, as well as a prophylactic measure for treating alimentary tract diseases. The equipment is described as an electrical stimulant containing a capsule, in which are located consecutively-connected units for testing parameters of an external medium and a pulse driver, connected to a power supply. Electrodes are provided on the external surface of the capsule, and total in number (2+n), where n=0, 1, 2, etc.
PCT Publication WO 06/064503 to Belsky et al., which is incorporated herein by reference, describes apparatus for drug administration. The apparatus includes an ingestible capsule, which includes a drug, stored by the capsule. The apparatus is described as including an environmentally-sensitive mechanism, adapted to change a state thereof responsively to a disposition of the capsule within a gastrointestinal tract of a subject; one or more drug-passage facilitation electrodes; and a control component, adapted to facilitate passage of the drug, in response to a change of state of the environmentally-sensitive mechanism, by driving the drug-passage facilitation electrodes to apply an electrical current. The apparatus is described as further including a velocity-reduction element adapted to reduce a velocity of the capsule through the GI tract for at least a portion of the time that the control component is facilitating the passage of the drug.
PCT Publication WO 97/31679 to Dirin et al., which is incorporated herein by reference, describes electrostimulation of the gastrointestinal tract. Apparatus described comprises an olive-like or ovate-cylindrical body member in which at least a part of opposed hemispheres is made conducting and forms a pair of electrodes, as well as a pulse generator and an electric power supply source disposed inside the body member. The apparatus is described as comprising an electrode and means for cyclically reversing the polarity of pulses on the electrodes. Electrostimulation efficiency of the device is described as being independent of opposite preferential orientations of its body member within a given visceral organ of a human being or animal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,709,388 to Mosse et al., which is incorporated herein by reference, describes a self-propelling device adapted to travel through a passage having walls containing contractile tissue, the device comprising a body and at least one contractile tissue-stimulating means for stimulating the walls to urge the device selectively. The stimulating means may be electrodes, and the passage can be the gut of an animal or human. The device is described as being particularly useful as an enteroscope.
The following patents and patent applications, which are incorporated herein by reference, may be of interest:
US Patent Application Publication 2003/0055466 to Ben-Haim et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,997 to Cordes et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,776,999 to Krumme et al.
PCT Patent Publication WO 01/91854 to Harel et al.
The following articles, which are incorporated herein by reference, may be of interest:
Amaris M et al., “Microprocessor controlled movement of solid colonic content using sequential neural electrical stimulation,” Gut 50:475-479 (2002)
Park H et Al., “New methods of moving control for wireless endoscopic capsule using electrical stimulus,” The 2004 International Technical Conference on Circuits/Systems, Computers and Communications, Hotel Taikanso, Sendai/Matsushima, Miyagi-ref., Japan, Jul. 6-8, (2004)